Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543

Regular readers know of my love for my friend Zach Weiner’s web comic “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal”. I think it’s mostly the bright colors that mesmerize me, but in fact it’s one of the funniest comics on the ‘net and one I never miss. Zach is a nerd’s nerd, an übergeek. His comics frequently deal with science and math, generally skewering both the topics themselves as well as our understanding of them.

Phil Plait writes Slate’s Bad Astronomy blog and is an astronomer, public speaker, science evangelizer, and author of Death From the Skies!

Today, Zach announced a new and exciting project: He’s collecting his science comics into a single compendium which he’s calling “Science: Ruining Everything Since 1543”. And it’s not just old comics; he’s also written some new ones for the book. He’s creating this book as a Kickstarter project. Give him money, and when it’s done he’ll send you the book.

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And there’s more, too: He asked some well-known scientists on the web to send him a personal story about science in their lives, regaling how it’s affected them, and Zach will draw them up as a comic to put in the book. And guess who he asked? Well, the only one he told me about is me, but he assures me there are others. So I sent him an All-True Tale of Bad Astronomy Past, and he created a multi-panel comic about it. Here’s the first panel:

The way Kickstarter projects work is that the creator sets a goal to reach, and the project only gets funded if that goal is in fact met. Well guess what? Zach set the goal at $20,000, and he reached it in only a few billion microseconds. So the book will get made! Not only that, but Zach has set stretch goals, things added as more money is sent in. He’s already added several, and I suspect is scrambling now to think of more stuff since the money is flowing.

I would strongly urge you to add your filthy lucre to the pile. I love SMBC right down to my alveoli. Oh. I should probably add that there is the occasional NSFW comic in there, mentioning various body parts and reproductive strategies. But it’s scientific! Usually!

So go and order your copy. If you don’t, cartoon Neil Tyson and I will be very unhappy. And we have powerful friends.

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